The desecration of war graves in Benghazi presents a profoundly misleading
picture of the state of Libya today, writes George Grant.

The desecration of two military cemeteries in Benghazi over the weekend is just the latest piece of bad news to come out of Libya. On February 21, it was reported that two British journalists had been detained by a militia in Tripoli, initially accused of entering the country illegally and now accused of being spies. Their captors have pledged to hand them over to the authorities once their own "investigations" have been completed, but the fate of the reporters still remains uncertain.

Worse, for several months now we have been reading reports of torture and abuse taking place in detention centres beyond the control of Libya’s transitional government, in which more than 8,000 people continue to be held. This situation is particularly acute in and around the city of Misurata, where an ongoing dispute with the people of nearby Tawergha, who fought for Gaddafi during the revolution, accounts for a disproportionate amount of the extrajudicial internment and abuse.

The portrait of Libya being generated is of a country spinning slowly, but surely, out of control. Whilst welcoming the National Transitional Council (NTC)’s condemnation of the graveyard desecrations and its pledge to undertake a full investigation, one is left asking simultaneously whether this well-meaning body is really in a position to do anything about it.

As it happens, knowing that fellow Libyans intervened to stop these men from causing further damage, and recognising just how strongly people in Libya will feel about this incident (the chief mufti has already appeared on television condemning the attacks and declaring them in contravention of Islam) it is not inconceivable that the perpetrators will be caught and brought to justice.

Indeed, what makes this particular incident so abhorrent is not just the utter disrespect it shows to the sanctity of the cemeteries and the memories of those buried there, but also the fact that it helps to reinforce what is already a profoundly misleading picture of Libya today.

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Having spent a fortnight in the country last month, I can say with some certainty that Libya is not collapsing. On the contrary, for a country less than six months on from the end of a war that ended one of the most regressive and eccentric dictatorships in recent memory, Libya is doing very well indeed.

Across the country as a whole, Libya’s militias are much less of a problem than commonly believed. Their objective is not to carve out fiefdoms for themselves, still less to topple the new government. Rather, as the UN’s envoy in Libya Ian Martin recently asserted, they represent a much less than perfect alternative to the still underdeveloped army and police, and a programme to integrate militia into these regular forces is now under way.

A classic example of misreporting on this issue came from the Guardian in an article on February 21, which warned of Libya's “disintegration” at the hands of more than 500 militias, using elections in Misurata as a specific example. The paper warned that the elections in Libya’s third city, unsanctioned by the NTC, were “a final step to what is independence in all but name”.

This was ironic, since two days later a couple of NTC members I was speaking to in Tripoli were hailing the Misurata elections as an unparalleled success. These were local elections, hence not considered to be within the remit of the NTC. Moreover, they had passed off without a shot fired and, of course, no declaration of independence from Misurata, formal or otherwise. The peaceful nature of this election, the NTC men insisted, augured well for countrywide elections of a National Assembly due in June.

Beyond Misurata, the vast majority of militia are now off the streets in urban centres including Tripoli and Benghazi, and checkpoints are few and far between.

Why then, is none of this being widely reported? First, there is of course the argument that it’s no news if it’s not bad news. Stories about how shops and restaurants across the country are once again open for business and queues at petrol stations are normal do not make for very interesting copy.

A second reason, however, could just as well be the law of unintended consequences. The last time the international press descended on Libya in force was for the first anniversary celebrations of the revolution on February 17. This coincided almost perfectly with the return of an equally large number of militia to the nation’s city centres, since they too wanted to be part of the momentous occasion.

Unfortunately, there appears to have been an almost total disconnect between the media’s reportage of the militia presence and their reappearance for the first anniversary celebrations. Within three days of the festivities taking place, the centre of Tripoli was once again almost emptied of armed militia and checkpoints. When not actually trying to carve out a quasi-autonomous fiefdom, there’s only so long a young man is willing to pose on the back of a pick-up truck with his Kalashnikov without getting paid. By this time, however, international interest in Libya had largely subsided too.

It is important to recognise just how widespread the desire of Libya’s people to see their revolution succeed actually is. Not only that, but this desire is accompanied by a strong sense of collective ownership that is compelling Libyans to take responsibility for the success or otherwise of their country’s transition to democratic rule. This country has just fought a war for its freedom and there is virtually no desire to start another one, amongst militia or anybody else.

Of course, it takes more than collective will to make a revolution succeed, but this is a country with great potential. In addition to its vast economic resources, Libya benefits from a comparatively literate workforce and a much more religiously moderate population than commonly believed. Nobody should be writing this country off as another failed state in-waiting just yet.